Knicks Won’t Let Go of the Ball

Jason Kidd has reached new peaks of ballhandling as a Knick, with a career-low turnover rate.

Among the many reasons for the Knicks’ remarkable 8-1 start, the most important may be that the team simply doesn’t turn the ball over often. New York’s turnovers are so rare, the team is on pace for the lowest turnover rate since the NBA began keeping the stats necessary to track it.

The Knicks have turned the ball over on just 10.1% of possessions. The next-best team, Toronto, has a turnover percentage of 12.1% and the league average is 14.1%. The NBA record, 10.9%, is shared by two teams — Dallas a decade ago and Philadelphia last year (records of turnover percentage go back to 1977-78). New York’s historic hoarding of the ball is particularly impressive because last year’s team had a turnover percentage of 14.9%, fourth-worst in the NBA. That’s nearly five more times per 100 possessions — or more than four more possessions per game — in which the Knicks have a chance to shoot the ball and score, rather than switching to defense without getting off a shot.

Partly the Knicks’ improvement in this area is a function of the club’s offseason moves in the backcourt. Baron Davis is injured and off the roster (though rehabbing with the team), while Jeremy Lin is a Houston Rocket. Both have many virtues as players, but protecting the ball last season wasn’t one of them. Lin’s turnover percentage last year was 21.4%, while Davis’s was a career-high 28.1%. In their place are Jason Kidd and Raymond Felton, who are adept at protecting possession. Kidd has 11 seasons with at least 1,700 minutes played, an assist percentage of at least 30% and a turnover percentage below 20%. That’s the second-highest number of such seasons in the NBA’s history of keeping turnover stats. Felton has six such seasons. Steve Nash has had five in his career. John Stockton had four.

But there also has been some particular jelling of the Knicks roster than has manifested itself in nearly every regular improving on last year’s turnover rate. Felton and Kidd are playing at career-low turnover percentages. So are returning Knicks Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler and J.R. Smith, as well as new Knick Ronnie Brewer. Meanwhile Steve Novak and Rasheed Wallace each are turning the ball over at a rate below last year’s. That’s six career-low turnover rates and two below last year’s, among the eight Knicks with the most minutes this season.

Preventing turnovers by itself doesn’t guarantee success. Nash and Stockton played for plenty of winning teams. And among the 40 teams with the lowest turnover percentage over a season, six had losing records — including, this season, the 3-8 Raptors and 4-7 Suns. The presence of three teams this year among the 40 shows how small sample sizes can skew things: The Knicks are unlikely to maintain both their low turnover rate and their winning pace. But so far, at least, keeping the ball has been a major reason for their major success.

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